


Blondes Have More Fun

by Sorryimnotthatkindofdoctor



Category: Hardy Boys - Franklin W. Dixon
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, Getting Together, Hardycest - Freeform, Incest, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-16 11:57:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21507580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorryimnotthatkindofdoctor/pseuds/Sorryimnotthatkindofdoctor
Summary: Joe dyes his hair red because he sees how into redheads Frank is & thinks maybe this will finally get his brother to see him.
Relationships: Frank x Joe, frank hardy x joe hardy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	Blondes Have More Fun

Joe had always been confident in himself. Any time he’d played with his appearance had been mainly because it had sounded fun or he was just curious as to what it’d be like. When he’d been 13, he’d had Iola pierce his ear with an ice-cube and a needle. By the time he was 15, he’d let the piercing close over. He’d never gotten a real tattoo, but he’d spent a good portion of his junior year with his arms & legs covered in Sharpie tattoos and even the temporary ones you could get out of vending machines. He’d had almost every hair color under the sun at one point or another… except one.

Red.

It wasn’t that he had anything against the color, necessarily. He actually liked it – it was vibrant & full of life.

It was also the color of one of his best friend’s hair. Nancy had been one of the friends he’d often get to help him whenever he decided that his naturally blonde hair needed purple streaks or blue tips. One time she’d commented about him never going red & he’d just laughed it off, saying there was only room in the world for one awesome ginger at a time & she’d already nabbed the spot.

He wasn’t lying, not really – Nancy was pretty damned awesome. That was part of the problem. Lucille Ball had once been quoted as saying that at one point in his life, “every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead.” His love for Nancy had always been that of a friend, but it’d been easy to see the quote as being true – men usually went fumble-tongued around her when they first met. After getting to know her, they got all goofy simply because Nancy was a genius.

What was really hard to swallow was watching it happen to Frank.

Joe had always had a thing for his big brother. When he’d been younger, he’d just figured it was just a brothers thing – hero worship or whatever. When he’d gotten old enough to understand sexual attraction & realized he was pansexual, he’d figured it was maybe the start of figuring out what it was he was attracted to. That had been a little weird at first, but not nearly as strange as realizing the truth.

He not only loved his big brother, he wanted to love his big brother.

As far as Joe was concerned, it was a non-starter of an issue. It was something he had learned to deal with – push it to the back of everything & slam it down. It wasn’t like it was ever going to go anywhere, anyway. Frank wasn’t interested in guys, as far as Joe could tell. And even if he was, Joe wasn’t on his radar.

It was obvious from watching the way Frank pined after Nancy that his big brother had a type – smart, witty, quick, & red-hair…

Every time Joe got the urge to do something to his hair, he picked up a box of red dye, but he never went through with it. It hurt to want Frank & know that he’d never have him – as much as he wanted to try to be everything Frank wanted, he knew it wouldn’t be the same. And the last thing he wanted was to be as close to Frank’s type as he could get only to see his big brother’s eyes slide over him without a second glance.

He’d thought he’d had a pretty good handle on it, even after their world fell apart and he & Frank found themselves traveling the country hunting monsters – real ones. They lived in each other’s pockets, driving in the van & staying in cheap motel rooms, closer than they’d ever been, but Joe still kept himself in check. He still did funky things to his hair, using Kool-Aid packets on the cheap for a quick color pick-me-up or Sharpie-ed protective runes into his skin, but he never went red. He tried to keep from letting guys who looked like his brother pick him up, knowing it wouldn’t help his desire, but sometimes…

Well, he wasn’t a saint, after all.

Frank would go out occasionally, but not nearly as often as Joe let himself get picked up. The blonde supposed that might have been helpful to his cause of trying not to think of Frank & “sex” in the same sentence, except it had sort of become a personal game for him. When they’d stop at a bar to score some money hustling pool or darts, Joe would look around, counting the redheads. Then he’d lay odds with himself as to whether or not they were close enough to Nancy for his big brother to go for.

And then, just when Joe was fairly certain his world couldn’t get rocked any harder than it had been to that point – the death of their parents, finding out monsters were real, oh & having a fucking crush on his big brother, thank you very much – Frank had thrown him another curveball.

Joe had left the bar the night before with a tall, dark-haired guy named Grant who had looked so close to Frank he might have been a twin. When he came back to their shared motel room, his strut loose & feeling more relaxed than he had in a long while, he’d caught Frank kissing his own one-night stand goodbye. The red hair was, of course, a given, but everything else…

Frank was kissing a guy.

Everything in Joe’s brain ground to a halt as he watched the other man walk away with a flash of his pretty blue eyes & a bright smile.

“What?” Frank said, arms crossed over his chest, cheeks flushed.

“Nothing,” Joe mumbled, scratching at his jaw as the entire world seemed to stop & start spinning in the opposite direction. He moved forward, immediately eyeing the hint of a hickey he could see on Frank’s throat & the sight of the rumpled bed behind him. He cleared his throat. “Is he your first guy? Do I need to throw you a… a coming out party? A sort of, ‘welcome to my team’ sort of thing?”

Frank’s flush deepened. “No, to both, please.” He shook his head, scrubbing a hand through his – in Joe’s opinion, rather delicious looking sex-hair. “No need for a party. I… you didn’t know?”

Joe stepped inside, doing his best not to look like he was checking to see if he could scent the other guy on his brother. “I knew you had a thing for redheads, Frank. Just didn’t know you were good with driving stick.”

The older boy rolled his eyes & shut the door. “Driving stick? Really?”

“What, it’s a good metaphor! Analogy. Whatever. I can come up with better, if ya like?”

“Please, don’t.” Frank grabbed his bag. “I’m gonna take a shower. Then we gotta hit the records office to find out where that guy is buried so we can burn the bones…”

And that was how Joe’s crush became a lot harder to deal with. Before, his pining had been for two categories, one that was slightly easier to deal with than the other. Frank was his brother, which presented its own problems. But Frank was also, up until now in Joe’s knowledge, straight. The first problem was mitigated by the second because Joe never stood a chance since Frank wasn’t into guys.

Which, how the hell had he missed that? He was slipping…

They finished the case & hit the road in search of another. Joe tried making a few jokes about it here & there, but Frank didn’t really rise to any of them. By the time they were digging up another grave to banish yet another spirit, it was just another thing between them.

Except it wasn’t.

Because now… now there were only two things that stood between Joe & the one boy he’d loved with all his heart for his entire life. And considering how often Joe had come up with arguments in his fantasy world for why it didn’t matter that Frank was his brother, it didn’t seem like nearly as big of an issue as it probably should have.

That left only one.

Almost six months later, Joe stood in front of the mirror, wiping the fog away from it after his shower. He turned this way & that, looking at his body before running his fingers through his hair. His blonde hair. He took a deep breath & pulled the box of hair dye he’d bought at the last store they’d stopped at.

Frank was out doing research. He had the time…

“Screw it,” Joe said to himself, opening the box & laying out the materials.

When Frank came back to the room, he tossed the files he’d managed to get on the table & shrugged off his coat. “Joe?” He glanced at the closed bathroom door. When he’d left, his younger brother had mentioned taking a shower, but that had been at least three hours ago.

“Joe, you ok in there?” He paused at the door, fist raised to knock.

“I’m good! Don’t come in!” Joe’s voice held an edge of panic to it that had Frank freezing. It wasn’t panic like he was hurt or someone was threatening him. Unfortunately, the older Hardy knew what his brother sounded like in those situations. This sounded…

“You need me to leave & come back?” he asked, his own voice slightly strained as he imagined what Joe might be doing that he’d want privacy for while sounding panicked.

Inside the bathroom, Joe kept staring at his reflection, silently cursing himself. Frank’s question made him blush & that just added to his frustration because the red in his cheeks so didn’t go with the odd, copper-penny orange-red his hair had become.

He looked like a fucking clown.

“No… no, I… I’ll be out in a minute.” He’d love it for Frank not to see this, but his only options were to stay in the bathroom until it washed out – the box said it was semi-permanent, yet another thing he’d missed, so this was here to stay for a while – or until he was able to bleach it gone. So unless Frank was willing to leave & not come back for a few weeks to months…

He grabbed a towel & wrapped it around his head the way he’d seen Nancy do after she washed her hair. He pulled his sweats up & stepped out, keeping his eyes downcast as he moved past Frank.

“You ok?” Frank asked, eyes roaming his little brother’s body. Joe nodded, one hand balancing the towel on his head.

“Yep.”

The one-word answer, more than anything, had Frank on edge. When Joe had come out with the towel on his head, Frank had half-expected him to go into some Carmen Miranda type shtick or something. But Joe still seemed on edge.

“You sure?”

“Yep.”

Joe was busy trying to figure out how he could get a shirt on over the towel wrapped around his head & then maybe slip a hat on over his hair to hide it without Frank seeing. The second one-word answer in a row with Joe not looking at him had put all of Frank’s protective instincts in high gear. He moved over closer to the blonde, reaching out to tap his shoulder. Joe jumped & the towel tumbled off his head.

“Wow,” Frank said after a few moments of silence, the smile obvious in his voice. “Ok, now I know why you were trying to hide that.”

Joe’s head dropped & his heart fell at the same time. He closed his eyes – this was why he’d never gone red. It was so much worse to have his brother look at him & laugh than to just not look at him at all.

He took a deep breath & plastered on a smile. “Pretty hideous, right? I was, uh… I was just going to go get some bleach. Try & tone it down at little.” He pulled on the shirt he held, wishing briefly he could hide behind the fabric forever.

“I always wondered why you’d never tried red,” Frank said, still laughing. “Now I know.”

“That wasn’t the reason,” Joe muttered, dropping down to slip on his shoes. “But yeah. I won’t be doing this again.”

There was something still in Joe’s voice & Frank’s smiled dipped.

“What was the reason?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Joe said, standing up. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Joe.” Frank moved in front of the younger boy. Joe still wasn’t looking at him. “What’s wrong? It’s not as bad as that time you had Iola shave your head into a mohawk & dye it lime green. It’ll fade out.”

“I know. I just… it was a bad idea. I’d rather just get it gone before people start calling me Bozo the clown, ya know?”

“Why? You’ve never cared what people thought before…”

Joe swallowed. He’d cared what one person thought, but now…

“It’s not that bad,” Frank offered, trying to help his little brother even though he didn’t fully understand what made this so bad for him. Frank hated seeing Joe hurting. “Really. I mean, it’s a big change, but…”

“I look like an idiot,” Joe said. With his tanned skin, the vibrant copper tints in the dye did him no favors. “I mean, we always knew I was one, right, but…”

“You’re not an idiot, Joe,” Frank said, voice firm. “And really. It doesn’t look bad.”

Joe finally risked looking up. “I know you’re the expert on redheads, Frank, but this…”

Frank looked at him. “I’m not an expert on redheads, what…” His eyebrows rose as Joe pushed away.

“Redheads are all you go after, Frank. I’d say that makes you an expert.” Joe tried to keep his voice light as he fished his wallet out of his bag & grabbed a hat, jamming it down over his head. Before Frank could speak again, Joe was out the door.

He needed to buy some bleach & some whiskey.

When Joe came back, Frank was gone – a note on the table said he’d gone to get food. Joe stripped off his shirt & opened the whiskey, coughing as he downed a heavy swallow. He went into the bathroom & set about applying the bleaching kit to his hair. When that was done, he planned on getting very drunk.

The next morning, Joe woke to a splitting headache. He groaned, reaching up to scrub a hand over his face & into his hair… it felt dry & over-processed. The bleach had worked to at least soften the vibrant red. He’d have to do it again to get rid of it all.

“Oh God,” he moaned, curling in on himself. Half a bottle of whiskey on an empty stomach was never a good idea. And then he & Frank…

Joe stilled. Frank had come back & they’d…

Joe rolled over, looking at the empty side of his bed. His brain was rapidly trying to remember what had happened after Frank got back when his brother’s voice caught his attention.

“Here,” he said, coming from the other side of the room with a water bottle & some pills. “Take these. For the headache.”

Joe obeyed, still staring at Frank who looked nervous. “Thanks,” he said, pushing himself slowly to sit up against the headboard. “Uh… I don’t… how stupid did I get last night?”

Frank sat down on the bed, hand resting on Joe’s knee. “You weren’t stupid.”

“That’s hard to believe,” Joe said, rubbing at his temples. He squinted over at Frank when the older boy didn’t tease him or move away. “What? What did I do?”

“Nothing. You drank. You… you talked.” Frank lifted his eyes to meet Joe’s gaze. “You were pretty open, actually.”

Alarm bells started going off inside Joe’s head, completely overpowering the hangover as he had a flash of himself with a hand on Frank’s shoulder, admitting his secrets.

“I was… I was drunk, Frank,” he said. “I… you can’t take what I said seriously. Uh, whatever… whatever it was. I… you know I can’t hold my liquor.”

Joe’s panicked rambling stopped as Frank reached out & put a finger to his lips. “Is that what you want, Joe?” he asked, the touch turning into the slightest caress. It made Joe freeze. “You want me to not take you seriously?”

Joe’s eyes were wide under Frank’s touch & he gave the slightest shrug, not really sure they were both having the same conversation. He had to stop with the whiskey – it always left him fuzzy on his memory the next morning.

“You said a lot last night, little brother,” Frank said, slowly dropping his hand from Joe’s lips. “I was hoping we could talk about it this morning… when you’re sober. See if you really meant it.”

Joe swallowed hard, fingers plucking at the sheet over his legs. Frank didn’t seem pissed or like he was pitying him – those were the two most frequent reactions in his nightmares when Frank found out his secret. Maybe he hadn’t really said anything. But then what was Frank wanting to talk about.

“Uh… well… sure, Frank. But, um… what… what exactly did I tell you?”

Frank stayed still. “You talked about being stupid – you’re not, by the way. Never have been. And I’m sort of tired of hearing you say that about yourself.” He squeezed Joe’s knee. “And about why you never had died your hair red before.”

Joe had started to relax, thinking maybe Frank was being all serious because he was just the good big brother who didn’t like his little brother being down on himself. But then his damned hair came up again. Had he told Frank the real reason?

“I always had a crush on Nancy – that’s probably not a big surprise,” Frank said & Joe looked down at his hands. “It wasn’t because she was a redhead, necessarily. It was just her. So when I started hooking up with redheads it was because I knew I couldn’t have her.”

Joe’s eyes flicked to the almost-empty whiskey bottle on the table thinking it might be a good idea to have a little fortification for this. He was pretty sure this was the start of Frank’s, look, little brother, we can’t be together speech.

“When I started going for redheaded guys… it wasn’t about them being redheads. I was trying to blend the two things I wanted most & knew I could never really have.” Frank’s hand slipped so that he wasn’t keeping Joe’s mouth closed. Instead, his fingers curled somewhat awkwardly around Joe’s jaw, cupping his face. Joe blinked at him rapidly.

“Did you mean it, Joe? Why you suddenly wanted red hair after all these years? Because you thought it was what I wanted? You thought you had to change, to be something special for me to want you?”

Joe’s heart stopped & his lungs froze up. The lingering effects of the liquor in his system all but disappeared as panic flooded his system. He couldn’t speak or move. All he could do was stare back into those soft, grey eyes.

“Joe… I need to hear you say it now. Sober. Aware. Please…”

Frank wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t backing away or refusing to touch him. He didn’t seem repulsed. Joe was trying desperately to get his brain functioning again, but all he knew was a deep-seeded sense of WANT. After all this time of keeping it back, he wanted to have it known…

“Yes,” he said, more breath than sound under the word. He swallowed & tried again. “I… I wanted you to want me… like I wanted you.”

The air hung, heavy & still for a moment before Frank’s thumb brushed against the corner of Joe’s mouth.

“Baby boy…” Frank leaned in, tilting his head to get the angle right, & then his lips were on Joe’s. It lasted barely a fraction of a moment, but the heat of it seared them together. When he pulled back, Joe fully expected to feel his lips burnt – cracked & singed from the contact. Joe drew in a shaky breath, grateful to see that Frank looked at least a little shaken, too.

“Frank, I…”

“You don’t have to be anything special for me, Joe,” Frank said, his thumb still brushing at Joe’s jaw & lips. “You already are. Red hair, blonde, blue, green… doesn’t matter to me.”

“But, Nancy. All those guys with red hair. You said…”

“Nancy was & probably always will be a crush, Joe,” Frank said. “Something familiar. But she’s not what I want. What I’ve wanted for years now…” He leaned in again. “That’s you.”

Joe rose to the kiss this time, one hand moving up to tangle in Frank’s hair as he moaned softly against Frank’s lips. He was more prepared for it this time when Frank pulled back. He kept the hand in his hair, fingers curling around the nape of his neck.

“It’s you, too. What I’ve always wanted.” Joe raised his other hand up to his own hair. Frank shifted his grip to Joe’s wrist.

“You don’t have to change to be what I want, Joe.”

Joe ducked his head slightly before glancing up with a smile. “Can I change a little? Get rid of the rest of this bad dye job?”

Frank returned the smile. “Yeah. But just so you know, it’s too late…”

“Too late?” Joe’s eyes narrowed & Frank nodded, letting him go to pat his cheek a little.

“Yeah… you already sent Nancy a picture of it on your phone. I tried to stop you, but you said something about being the ‘most awesome ginger in the world now’ & I had no power over you.”

Joe groaned, hiding his face. Frank ran a hand through his hair. “For what it’s worth, she seemed to agree. But she also promised to reclaim her status, so…”

A few days later, Joe sent Nancy another picture showing off his almost-white bleached hair. he sent along with the image. She sent back a smiley face & a thumbs up.

Joe just smiled & pushed at the sharp feel of the bruise Frank had left on him last night.

END


End file.
